Interview with David Park

Garrett Fuller sits down with David Park of Scions of Fate.

Previously known as Yulgang Online, Scions of Fate is a game that has seen a great deal of success in China, and is now moving over the the North American market.

Hehehe, not to sound cocky, but those numbers were gathered from our Chinese demographics over a year ago. Currently we have over 35 million international users with a record of concurrent users breaking the 600,000 mark. We have live servers in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and Thailand all of which have received awards and recognition for outstanding gameplay and customer service. When we say that Scions of Fate is a game designed for community and party-play, we mean it!

In Scions of Fate, there are two factions: "The Order" and "Chaos". The Order is an organization that focuses on their fighting ability to attain enlightenment and create peace and calm within the community. Chaos focuses on their fighting ability for the sake of strength and ability alone; pursuit of anything else was wasteful and frivolous.

The theme/motif (you can almost call it the genre) of Scions of Fate is a Casual Action MMORPG, where people can come together and party or roleplay with each other to build strong online communities. Even the story itself revolves around people coming together for one purpose (well one of two purposes I suppose) and defeating any who oppose it.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the marketing strategy for China, it is safe to say that Scions of Fate easily matched the Eastern tastes and tendencies of Chinese players. Simply put, take the easy localization of the game and mix it with the focus-on-community aspect of the game and you get a killer combination that appeals to a market consisting of MILLIONS of people. The biggest aspect of Scions of Fate's success stems from its communities and players, which we will continue to focus on wherever we take this game.

There are a couple of things, however, that we will change in the U.S. to match Scions of Fate's focus on community and party play. Even as we speak new content and localization are being finalized for the Closed Beta of Scions of Fate. We are really excited about Scions of Fate's release and we hope our users are excited too.

We have five classes from which to choose from; they are: the Bladesman, the Swordsman, the Spearman, the Archer, and the Healer. Let's start with melee shall we? While at first glance, the Bladesman and Swordsman sound similar, they are different in both weapons-styles and game-play. Think of the Bladesman as an agile fighter whose accuracy and speed are high, but attack damage and defense is low. To contrast, the Swordsman has low accuracy and speed, but high damage and defense. You can almost think of it like Zoro vs. Conan the Barbarian, except with cuter features and cooler skills. The Spearman is self-explanatory in his weapon-choice, and has the highest damage dealing abilities in the game. Its health and defense are relatively low however, so be careful when waving that spear around! Now to the ranged classes: The archer is a ranged damage dealer who relies on his agility and speed to avoid his enemies. The dodge rate for the archer is abnormally high. The Healer is the magic-caster of our game and has both offensive and healing/buff spells. Healers are absolutely necessary for every party, but they are also the weakest. Parties must protect their Healers well.

Class dynamics (how each class relates to the other in PvE and PvP) are an interesting thing. From my experience, how each class interacts with the other really depends on the play-style of players. For instance, in Korea, the archer or the swordsman may be the more popular choice for PvP, but in China it could be something else entirely because of what they focus on. Honestly, I believe it will be up to the players here in America in determining which class is good for what.

Our Apprentice training has been working great for players! It was specifically designed to help build communities, friends, and parties, which has worked out great (as can be shown in our member numbers). The apprentice system allows players to come together in a special way where making friends with higher/lower levels really pays off.

Using this system beginners can become "integrated" into the world of Scions of Fate quickly while at the same time receive rewards and bonuses available nowhere else. The higher levels who participate also receive bonuses and rewards for being the "master" in the relationship. Things like exp, skills, items, and quests are all fair game in the Apprentice System and it's something I'm sure the Western world will enjoy.

The crafting system comes in three parts. There is: Enchanting, Enhancing, and Essence. Enchanting allows you to add special abilities to weapons depending on the characteristics of the enchanting stone. You can enchant a weapon a maximum of four times. When failing an enchantment, you lose the enchanting stone but you do not lose the weapon. Enhancing increases the basic statistics of a weapon and can be done a maximum of 10 times. If a player fails in enhancing his weapon, he loses both the stone AND the weapon. As you increase in Enhancements, the chances of success become lower. For Essence, a player may add elemental attributes (Water, Fire, Wind, Poison, Inner Energy, and Physical Energy) to his weapon up to 10 times. Chances of success become lower the higher the Essence, and failure leads to losing the gem and all Essence attributes (the item remains).

There is a saying in Asia that goes: "In life, a man cries only three times: when he is born, when his father dies, and when he loses an item in crafting". In Scions of Fatee, crafting is a lot of fun and excitement and our players really enjoy it. Sometimes things can get intense, but the rewards are definitely worth it!

In Scions of Fate you can use your pets for everything from transportation to help in leveling. There are four pets: Mouse, Hawk, Leopard, and Tiger (the Leopard and Tiger can be ridden). You can level and equip your pet with accessories and armors just like you would another character, except this one is a lot cuter and cuddly. Transportation pets will allow players to move around a lot quicker, and they'll even have upgrades with regards to speed. Pets will have the ability to use skills and movement abilities, and much more! Pets are definitely something to look forward to in Scions of Fate.

Personally, I foresee tons of people making new friends and guilds (they're called "houses" in Scions of Fate) in the game. With things like the party system, apprentice system, PvP system, etc. we truly believe that a strong sense of community will be something our players will experience while playing the game. In addition to this, we feel that our Western players will also enjoy the new genre of casual action MMORPG where levels and items are not the only focus/purpose of the game. While we can explain more about what we mean, the best way to enjoy the experience of Scions of Fate is to try the game out during our Closed Beta. Hope to see you there!